To celebrate the 20th anniversary, Valve got the original Half-Life 2 development team back together to bring some much-needed updates to the game, with the game now being free for the weekend in addition to a bunch of BTS content that has been released.
Half-Life 2 now includes the Episode One and Episode Two expansions within the base game with them being accessible from the main menu. You can grab it for free HERE.
I’d highly recommend checking out the 20th anniversary website for the game HERE which has a bunch of looks at scrapped footage from other Half-Life projects as well.
NEW HALF-LIFE 2 UPDATES
UPDATED GAME CONTENT
- Fixed pops, holes in the world, fading-out and disappearing objects across the game.
- Rebalanced the lighting across Half-Life 2 to account for playing with HDR on or off, using the original release as reference.
- Cleaner, smoother horizon lines thanks to new radial fog!
- Added higher-resolution lightmaps across the game!
- Removed green glow from the G-Man model’s eyes in the opening of the game, and restored the reflective glint as seen in the original release.
- Fixed missing grass sprites and blacked-out models throughout the game!
UPDATED GRAPHICS SETTINGS
- Choose either the original launch day blood and fire effects, or those created for the episodes, when playing the Half-Life 2 base game!
- Play with only the highest detail models in High Quality mode!
- Get smoother lightmap shadows at Very High shader detail, thanks to new bicubic lightmap filtering!
GAMEPAD/STEAM DECK UPDATES
- Gamepad controls have been updated to match the Half-Life 1 anniversary update.
- Aim Assistance has gotten an overhaul making it feel better to use, and there are more configuration options available. Aim Assistance can be enabled separately for gamepad or mouse/keyboard input. The amount of assistance can be tuned up and down, and it’s no longer tied to a skill setting. Want to play on Hard with high aim assist, or Easy with it off? Knock yourself out.
- The Steam Deck main menu has been updated with all of today’s additions including the Episodes, Workshop, and new input configuration. The Steam Deck version of the main menu will also appear when you play Half-Life 2 on a PC running
